In 2009 Rainbow launched a Life Chancesservice, aimed at giving some of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable young people in Southampton the opportunity to gain meaningful employment experience, increasing their chances of securing employment in the future.

The aims of Life Chances are:

to enable young people 16 – 24 to reduce the risk of becoming homeless, reduce re-offending and overcome other barriers such as being a care leaver, having learning difficulties or mental health issues and improving their overall outlook/ prospects.

To achieve this, the Project helps young people to obtain:

a qualification

life skills

a CV

work experience

an employment reference

improved self esteem

training in financial competence

support through a newly developed mentoring service

To do this, the Project:

employs young people for up to twelve months seconding them to other organisations to gain meaningful work experience (see host page) matching each young person with a trained volunteer mentor who provides regular one-to-one support enabling access to training options including financial competence (owning a bank account, becoming credit worthy etc) and IT skills.

How local business can help

We are looking for businesses which will join the campaign by:

acting as hosts, providing a job opportunity by hosting and sponsoring one or more young people.

We request participating businesses to make a modest financial contribution to help fund the employment of the young people. However, to make it as easy as possible for the host businesses, all the employment issues, including pre-employment training, helping devise an individual plan for the employment period, discipline etc will be undertaken by Rainbow. This means there is minimal risk for participating companies.

What will you get in return?

Our experience is that businesses benefit from participation in a number of ways, including:

potential for finding future employees

the opportunity to make a valuable contribution to tackling the problems faced by disadvantaged young people in Southampton

helping to fulfil any stated commitment to corporate social responsibility.

At 2016, 24 young people have been employed through the Life Chances scheme. A total of 10 young people have now left the scheme as their 12 month contracts ended; all have moved on to other employment, apprenticeships or traineeships. 8 are currently employed by Rainbow and fully engaged in working towards an anticipated outcome of employment/ apprenticeship.